Equinoxes & Solstices
by AfroGeekGoddess
Summary: Molly/Spring, Irene/Summer, Sally/Autumn, Anthea/Winter. Portrait poems of the women of Sherlock, centered around the four seasons. Warnings for discussions of racism, BDSM, brief moments of gore.


**I've been mulling over the idea of creating some nature/season/element-based character studies of the women of ****_Sherlock_**** for a while now, and these poems finally emerged. Depending on my writing flow, I may expand this to a series.**

**Warnings for discussions of racism, BDSM, brief moments of gore.**

* * *

Molly loves the growing spring, when the world is  
sodden, unfurling its secrets from the ground,  
all the buried bones _(by animals, by men)  
_jut up from the half-thawed earth, naked and bleached;  
the scattered acorns the squirrels had hidden  
beginning to sprout, malformed and half-eaten;  
when the colors she loves so dearly—rose golds,  
dusty pinks, the splashes of vermillion and violet  
she wears on her skin and paints on her blog—  
dance across her eyes; when the buds break  
through the dirt like saws through chest cavities,  
lay their bright, juicy blossoms out for her  
to measure and weigh; she harvests the flowers  
she planted in the fall: blood red snapdragons;  
hyacinths, their blue lips spread wide;  
coral poppies with their black, flat eyes—  
cradles them in her gloved hands,  
their petals waxy and cool, breathes deep.

* * *

Irene craves the hot lash of summer, when the air is  
thick enough to coil around her, bind her body  
in a _shibari_ of sweat; everyone bows down  
before The Sun, Her heat gilded and inescapable,  
offering their raw, soft bodies for Her pleasure,  
to crisp and mark with red welts, to warm  
one second and burn the next; even after sunset,  
She soaks the night with jasmine, fireflies, fever dreams;  
The Sun is always in Her battle dress, naked and bright,  
diamond-dipped and crimson-lipped and flawless in Her fire;  
in the depths of July, she leaves the AC alone, strips down to  
her bare pale skin, anointed with apricot oil,  
and kneels before her heavenly Mistress,  
every lash of Her nuclear light flowing through her,  
down to her fingernails, their red, red tips.

* * *

Sally aches for these fall months, when the whole world looks like  
shades of her: leaves turning to the copper of her fingernails,  
the pale maple brown of her skin, the bright red flecks in her eyes,  
when the whole of London loves the colors of her body  
_(she knows it won't last, knows the white faces who adore  
the changing leaves won't give her brown body  
a second admiring glance, won't  
write poems about her kinky, colorful splendor)_;  
trees unveil their bare skeleton mysteries: abandoned nests,  
broken buds, the remnants of a crow's feather, drop  
their green masks to reveal their true crimson selves;  
the air snaps back to a chilly tattoo, sweet crisp breezes  
that prickle her skin, remind her on the days  
she's stuck at her desk of the adrenaline of the chase,  
the stakeout, the nip of cold handcuffs on a perp's skin;  
on the briskest fall nights, she walks  
with no scarf, no jumper, brown arms bare  
and swinging in a t-shirt and jeans,  
her black curls whipping like the trembling trees.

* * *

Anthea adores when the world is shrouded under snow,  
blank and white, the city wiped clean like disk drives  
and spies' memories; when snow swirls around her,  
the sky laden with a million fractals, secrets encoded in crystal;  
the softest bank of white hides onyx ice underneath,  
waiting for someone to skid and shatter; she shuns  
the flicker of fairy lights and warm hearths,  
luxuriating in the longest, darkest nights,  
in this cold shadow work she loves best,  
clicking flurry-fast on her Blackberry, slipping  
through the frosted slate night as easily as  
she slips in and out of black unmarked cars;  
she buries her secrets under elegant avalanches,  
smothering and deadly; as she works, she pulls down  
icicles from the eaves, cracks and crunches them  
under her teeth like the bones of her enemies:  
enemies of the state, of this frozen, glittering nation  
that is hers to protect, for though her employer is _The Ice Man_,  
she is _The Ice Queen_.

* * *

**AN: As always, thanks to the lovely Mirith Griffin for being my beta goddess and dear friend. And thanks to you for reading. Comments are welcome.**


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